


Woman of the World

by orphan_account



Category: Father Ted
Genre: F/M, Harlequin Big Bang, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-23
Updated: 2013-04-23
Packaged: 2017-12-09 06:54:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 15,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/771307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dougal has gone to Dublin to marry Niamh Connelly and become a rockstar. </p><p>Written for Harlequin Big Bang and featuring cover art by neevebrody!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

 

  
  
  
Cover art by [neevebrody](../../../../users/neevebrody/pseuds/neevebrody)!

 

 

The storm tore through the sea and hit Craggy Island in the late afternoon. It mauled the island's sparse trees, carrying leaves and then branches with it. The rain lashed down like a barrage of tiny knives. Thunder rolled and cracked and the windows in the island's sturdy houses clattered even as people locked and shuttered them, then braved the gale to pile up firewood in expectation of an inevitable power-cut.

 

In the parochial house, standing alone in the middle of its vast field, unprotected by hill or vegetation, the windows rattled loudly enough to drown out the sound of the television. Mrs Doyle was taping fresh layers of newspaper onto the frames to block out drafts and offer protection in case a blast knocked a loose rock through the glass. The rain hadn't let up for two months now, but the winds had stayed moderate before now even as the roads had flooded and telephone poles toppled in the mud. The roof was beginning to sag again, and they'd only fixed it last year.

 

"All right there, Mrs Doyle?" asked Ted from the sofa.

 

Mrs Doyle's foot spun wildly in the air as she tried to find a foothold off her stool. "Fine, Father," she assurred him and fell over. Ted would have helped her up, but his feet had just gotten warm in the glow of the fire and he was too comfortable to move.

 

The television signal buzzed and coughed. The only channel that worked had an hour-long special on Niamh Connelly. It was the last thing Ted wanted to watch, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to turn the infernal thing off, either.

 

It had been six months since she had been plastered all over the news for being pregnant out of wedlock, a mere two months since she'd been in the news again for refusing to tell anybody which sex her newborn was, and one month, three weeks and a few days since since Ted's world had been turned upside down.

 

On the outside, nothing much had changed. He was still stuck on Craggy Island. Services were performed on schedule. Mrs Doyle still wrote letters to Eoin McLove and Father Jack still slumped in his armchair in the corner smelling of wee and unwashed hair.

 

None of it had felt quite the same ever since Dougal had gone to Dublin to be a rockstar.

 

"He really understands my music and my advocacy," Niamh was saying between bouts of interference. "He doesn't vie for dominance, which is why we've developed such a good working relationship on top of our personal relationship." The interview cut to handheld footage of a recording studio, with Niamh in a cut-off top, a guitar slung over her shoulder. "Try it from a C," she said, and the camera swung to Dougal sitting at a keyboard.

 

Dougal sat behind a keyboard in a tight-fitting T-shirt with the words 'venus envy' printed on it in lipstick shades. Someone had cut and styled his hair so it stuck up in every direction, and it looked like he was also growing a stubbly beard. It was almost like it wasn't Dougal at all. It certainly wasn't Ted's Dougal.

 

Ted felt a pang of longing and reached for his cigarettes. On the telly, Dougal flashed a shy smile to the camera and played a quick riff on the keyboard. It wasn't a bad riff. God damn it to hell, it wasn't bad at all. "I believe he's going to be a wonderful influence on Liberty," said Niamh's voice over the footage, which switched to a shot of the two of them at Niamh's country house, with Dougal playing on the patio with a tiny red-faced infant in green coveralls.

 

The program switched back to the interview. "We've been told Dougal will be excommunicated when we marry, which just goes to show the level of sexual intolerance in the Catholic church. Celibacy is a perverted practice that denies men the chance of a domestic life, even as the patriarchs of faith discourage women from seeking successful careers in the world. I'm sad that Dougal has to lose his job to have a family, but that's not his fault, or mine. The church needs to examine its policies. On one of the songs on my new album, 'Bitch Is a Word to Choke On', I address my experience of transgression, both from the point of view of theocratic morality and its invasion on the area of personal choice--" At this point the signal gave in to the elements and the scene disappeared into analogue snow. It was just as well, because Ted hadn't a bloody clue what she'd been on about.

 

Ted switched the set off. "I don't suppose you'd care for a board game, Father?" he asked Father Jack.

 

"Gobshite," said Father Jack.

 

"You're probably right, it is getting a bit late."

 

Ted went to bed early with a hot water bottle and a stack of cheap detective novels, but found it difficult to concentrate on the literature, partly because of the noise of storm, and partly because the empty, neatly made bed on the other side of the room kept drawing his eye.

 

Living on Craggy Island had always veered from one extreme to another: either boring to the point where you'd almost look forward to the next service or exciting in a horrible kind of way involving multiple injury and/or public humiliation. Since Dougal was gone, the seesaw seemed permanently stuck on the boring end of the spectrum, with only the occasional midnight escape attempt by Father Jack to break the monotony.

 

Ted missed having someone to talk to, even if it was Dougal. Especially if it was Dougal. It was funny how you didn't know how much you liked someone until they'd left you and gone to Dublin to share a life of luxury with a gorgeous millionaire.

 

Ted sighed, gave up on the novel, and turned off the light. There was nothing he could do about it now, and nothing to look forward to but an endless succession of days until one day he came to a relatively spotless grave.

 

He let self-pity soothe him to sleep.

 

-

 

The story, the way Ted read it in the paper, was that Niamh and Dougal had had a brief but torrid affair during her two-day stay on Craggy Island in 1996, but had been forced to part because of Dougal's loyalty to the church. The paper said nothing about Dougal giving Niamh the house, the Lovely Girl competition, or how Ted and Dougal had spent the night in a tent on the yard because Niamh had refused to let them sleep inside. Instead the paper had continued to describe how, years later, they had been rejoined when two protests clashed and a Romeo-and-Juliet storybook passion flared to the tune of a surprise pregnancy.

 

Ted had turned the events over and over in his mind and hadn't been able find any detail that didn't fit the story, other than that it was _Dougal_ they were talking about. _Dougal_. Dougal wouldn't know a passionate affair if – well, if he was in one. Which seemed to be exactly what had happened.

 

The dates fit. Approximately nine months before Liberty's birth, Ted and Dougal had been sent to the mainland to stage a protest outside a small community library, since the local priests had refused to cause a fuss about it carrying banned books. Ted had no such quibbles. If Bishop Brennan told him to protest books about abortion and women's rights, he would, because Bishop Brennan was frankly terrifying, and besides, it was nice to pop into the mainland sometimes and get a few of those fancy cigarettes that didn't taste a bit like stable hay.

 

The day had been pleasant and sunny for the time of the year. Ted and Dougal were joined by some of the local parishioners and so they made a decent-sized group outside the library, with two bank clerks, a family of five and no less than ten elderly ladies carrying signs with Bible verses on them. There was even a TV crew from the local news station – one reporter, one cameraman – which made it all the more exciting. Ted had prepared some snappy one-liners for when he'd be interviewed. It might even go some way to make up for the _Faith of Our Fathers_ fiasco.

 

His one-liners had been doomed to obscurity. As soon as the counter-protest had showed up with Niamh Connelly at the head, Ted's group seemed to become invisible to all members of media.

 

Ted took no responsibility for what followed. It had been someone from Ted's side who'd started it, true, but how were any of them to know old Mrs Schneider was carrying a store of water balloons? By the time the police arrived, the sun had gone out and hypothermia was threatening to set in, with most of the protesters soaking wet, several collars torn, bruises exchanged all around, and at least one fractured walking stick.

 

In all the excitement it had taken Ted a while to notice Dougal was gone.

 

After two hours of frantic searching up and down the street, popping into every shop selling toys, pets or Catholic-themed souvenirs, he'd finally got a ring from Niamh asking him to come pick Dougal up from her hotel. Dougal had been found hale and sound, if somewhat shell-shocked and quiet, and Ted had been too mad at him to ask why.

 

They'd gone home and thought nothing more of it until a few weeks later when Niamh had dropped the bomb in the evening news.

 

-

 

The post came in first thing in the morning. Ted groaned at the splatter of rain on the newspaper. "It's not the best service, is it?" he remarked to Mrs Doyle as she poured the breakfast tea. "You wouldn't sell a damaged newspaper in a shop, but it's all right when it's delivered, apparently!"

 

Outside, the rain had turned into hail and was hammering hard on the roof, dislodging moss and cracking the tiling. Somewhere further away on the island, old Kenneth Wilkes, wearing a helmet and a hooded raincoat, was pushing his post van out of a bed of mud. He was about to lose another welly, but he would never lose his spirit.

 

"These also came in the post," said Mrs Doyle, offering a stack of letters. Two were bills and three advertisements for magazines and warm underwear. The sixth was a long envelope made of expensive paper, with no return address. Ted pulled out an engraved wedding invitation. It was Dougal and Niamh's.

 

"That's a bit much," Ted spluttered. "I don't hear from him for two months – I try to call him and the call gets misdirected – I show up at his studio and they won't let me in – and _now_ I'm invited to their wedding! Which they shouldn't even be having!"

 

"You never told me you went to see Father McGuire in the mainland," said Mrs Doyle.

 

"I thought I'd drop in since I was over there anyway," Ted lied. "It doesn't matter anyway, since apparently I'm not good enough for him anymore. Well, tough darts, Mr Bigtime Rockstar Celebrity, but there's one priest left in Ireland who won't come calling just because you crook your finger!"

 

"Isn't that most priests in Ireland, since he was suspended?"

 

"Yes, well. It doesn't matter." Ted turned the invite over. "There isn't even a signature. If he really wants me to come, he could at least sign the invite. Or give me a call."

 

"The phone lines have been down since October."

 

Mrs Doyle, in Ted's opinion, needed to stop making these acute observations. "Aren't you upset at all?" he asked her. "About Father Dougal?"

 

Mrs Doyle thought it over. "On one hand, it's a terrible sin to be carrying on like that when you're a priest. Never would have thought it of Father McGuire. On the other, he is doing the right thing by marrying the girl. Who am I to judge? There was a time when I, too, committed acts of such indecency I don't know how God ever forgave me. I certainly haven't forgiven myself. I don't know what came over me then, Father. I was possessed by the demon Lust. I let my husband strip me all naked, right down to the long underwear. I even helped him with his fly. And he took me by the buttocks, and would you know what he did to them –"

 

"Er, quite – Mrs Doyle, if you would..."

 

"It's amazing what men can do for your pleasure. Rub this and rub that and take this in between your breasts and stick out your tongue. I feel like washing my mouth just thinking about that hot, heavy night, with the bedsheets all covered in sweat--"

 

"Mrs Doyle, do you have any more of those cinnamon cakes?" Ted asked loudly.

 

"Certainly, Father. Would you like another cup of tea with them?"

 

"If I may."

 

After breakfast, Ted had meant to work on his sermon, but with the wind howling outside, it didn't seem as if there would be any sermon that Sunday. He looked over his notes, which were scribbled on a paper napkin from the pub.

 

 _Something about temperance_ , it said, and then _why it's more important to be sensible than happy_ and _things you can't have are probably things you shouldn't have_.

 

Ted frowned at his own handwriting.

 

**-**

Around 4 pm that afternoon the roof caved in.

 

Father Jack's drink stash had been getting low and they had had to play the Marseillaise to stop him pulling down the bookshelves in a fit of rage. Ted had been counting the notes until he could sit down again when an enormous noise split the house. The lamp on the ceiling rattled and clinked as a weight of water and plaster hit Ted's bedroom upstairs. Even Jack forgot about standing to attention and hid under the dining table, shouting curses at the sky.

 

The water gushed down the stairs and dripped through the living room ceiling. They took refuge in the kitchen, then later on the dining chairs with their feet tucked under them as rainwater sloshed on the floor. Mrs Doyle wailed over the carpets and her fine table cloth.

 

Ted bit the bullet and ventured out to the yard to see if there was any way to get the car to the road and into town for the night. The driveway right outside the house had turned into a river of mud. Ted's attempt to push the Ford into the higher ground left him muddy as well as soaked through, and the car not an inch closer to safety. They'd either have to take their chances in the house or walk, and it would have been an hour's walk to the nearest neighbour on a dry day even without Father Jack to slow them down.

 

Ted went back in and dried himself off as much as he could on a pair of kitchen towels. He considered Mrs Doyle sitting gingerly on the edge of the table, warming her hands on a cup of tea, and Jack slumped over a pair of stairs shivering as he grew more and more sober. He was just thinking of checking upstairs to see if the guest rooms had escaped relatively dry when the phone rang in the living room.

 

Opening the kitchen door let in a fresh, icy wave that raised the water level, but Ted had no time to think about that. He waded, pushing his legs hard against the weight of water and snatched at the receiver. "Hello? Hello!"  
  
"Is that Father Crilly?" said a woman's voice.

 

For a moment Ted thought he was hallucinating. "Miss Connelly?"

 

"The same. I wanted to talk to you about the wedding, and a business deal. Are you all right? You seem to be breathing funny."

 

"Call me tomorrow at the Seven Strangers Inn in Main Street, Craggy Island," said Ted, hung up, and dialled the rescue centre.

 

 


	2. Two

 

Mayor Chapple, it turned out, had ordered all phone lines repaired just that morning as the weather report came in in case people were trapped and isolated by flooding. There wasn't a single soul at the Seven Strangers that evening that didn't consider this a masterstroke and his next election  practically guaranteed.

 

The parochial house hadn't been the only casualty of the storm. Sean Yin had had a branch come in through a top floor window and Michael's apartment over the cinema had been flooded by a burst rain gutter. The inn (which had changed its name from Ye Olde Inne after a legendary summer when it had housed a whole seven visitors) already played host to three families with damaged houses as well as one Italian backpacker everyone thought must have taken a very wrong turn to end up on Craggy Island. More news of damages reached the inn's bar room as the grapevine defied the weather, but Ted was exhausted – not to mention Mrs Doyle. Father Jack was still at the hospital for what the nurses called hypothermia but that Ted figured was just aggravated sobriety.

 

Ted retired to the single room he had been lucky to get while Mrs Doyle shared with Mrs Graham. Outside the storm, which had already gained the nickname of the Bastard of Showers, continued to pummel the island.

 

At last, after midnight, the winds waned. By morning the rain was mild and the air merely breezy. A touch of blue sky peeked through the white cover of cloud.

 

Ted was called to the lobby phone from his late breakfast. "I don't usually call back after someone hangs up on me," said Niamh Connelly, "but I read the weather report this morning and decided to give you the benefit of the doubt."

 

Ted explained the situation.

 

"In that case I have good news for you. Dougal and I will be happy to put you up while the parochial house is being repaired."

 

"Well..."

 

"If you're worrying about the travel arrangements, don't. My assistant will arrange everything. In fact, I would like you to stay for some time after the wedding, at least until we all the legal issues are sorted out."

 

"Legal issues?"

 

"That's the other thing I wanted to talk to you about. We'd like to record a cover version of 'My Lovely Horse'."

 

"What?"

 

"I know what you're thinking, not really my kind of thing, but we're taking a different approach to it. I'm guessing your original inspiration was late 80s punk. Softening it into Eurosong pop trash really ruined its primal irony. Am I in the ballpark?"

 

"Er... Yes, roughly."

 

"The record company is being difficult and we need to look into the copyright, but as you are the composer I'd like to get you in my corner. It will be boring, but in the end you'll be raking in royalties."

 

"When you say 'raking in'..."

  
"If it does as well as the least popular song on my last album, you won't be short of gold thread for the next decade."

 

Ted teetered between pride and greed. This proposal was damn near unrefusable.

 

"Oh, there is one other thing, though. I hope you don't mind flying."

 

"Flying?"

  
"We'll be having the wedding in the Bahamas."

 

The hotel boarded the Main Street on one side, but the lobby's windows gave out to the rugged landscape of rocks and grass on the other. Ted could see vast expanses of the fields turned into grassy pools, with the only tree in sight half torn off its roots. Even through the double-glazed window he could feel a touch of bitter cold forcing its way in.

 

"I'd be delighted," said Ted, choking just a little on his pride as it went down.

 

 


	3. Three

 

Ted found that first class, with its extra leg space and a seat that could be spread into a bed, not to mention the in-flight entertainment, worked wonders on his fear of flying. Once the plane was off the ground and the attendant rolled in the complimentary wine and treats, his terror fled like a bad dream. Had he anticipated this, he would not have taken that heavy-duty sleeping pill; as it was, he spent the first part of the flight in a muzzy torpor during which he may or may not have become best friends with a walrus in a bowtie.

 

It was a full week since the storm and only two days before the wedding. It had taken Ted and Mrs Doyle a few tries to get Father Jack manhandled into the car and off to Jurassic Park, and that was on top of having to glue hair on his hands to get him accepted in the first place. Mrs Doyle's sister's house was on higher ground, so she was in safe hands, and when the weather calmed down she could keep an eye out for the parochial house. Mrs Doyle was the best person to direct the repairs in any case, since she knew the house inside and out; she had probably already fixed every part of it at some point.

 

Ted couldn't shake the feeling that he was running away, even though it was all above board for once. The holiday had been squared with the diocese. "Try and talk sense into that idiot," Bishop Brennan had said, "and for God's sake try for some decorum. The church doesn't need any further embarrassment."

 

Ted wasn't sure if what he wanted to do was talk sense into Dougal. Fighting Father Jack, living in a busy inn and then getting zonked out on legal drugs had had the pleasant side effect of keeping his mind off the prospect. It was lucky, Ted thought, the way the mind slips off things it doesn't want to dwell on, especially when you could watch all Bond movies back to back with earphones on and your own martini to sip. They even had  _Casino Royale_.

 

It was odd how people, specifically women, just fell out of Bond's life between the films. It made all that fuss seem like a big waste. Moneypenny was still there, and so were M and Q. You could rely on the people you work with. Ted supposed spies' missions were like holidays in that sense. You could have a fling, come back home again, and think nothing of it, or at least if you could if you weren't a priest.

 

What on earth had Dougal been thinking? Nothing, probably. Ted tried blaming Niamh, since any woman – any man, too, to be honest – could lead Dougal by the nose, but it somehow hadn't seemed enlightened to blame a woman of her own surprise pregnancy. Not that Niamh seemed worried about her honour. It hurt his brain to think about it so he stopped. In any case being angry at Dougal was more satisfying. Dougal was the one who'd abandoned him.

 

Dougal had abandoned him, yes, and on top of that he was now living out one of Ted's own favourite daydreams, even if Ted's co-star in those dreams tended to be someone more pliable than Niamh Connelly. Ted imagined lying in the sun sipping coconut milk next to someone warm and kind who loved him unconditionally – someone more corporeal than the Lord, that is. It was satisfying and painful to think about at the same time, like picking at a sore you know is going to linger longer if you don't leave it alone.

 

Would you believe it, Bond got out of that one, too. The villains never had any luck.

 

-

 

Another short flight from the Grand Bahama Airport to the Exumas, and Ted emerged blinking into sunlight. The heat struck his face like warm porridge, cooled only by a gentle sea breeze. It reminded Ted of arriving on Hawaii.

 

He'd slept well enough, but the one thing first class hadn't yet figured out was how to provide on-board shower facilities, and all those long hours had left Ted feeling grubby and sticky. He had a quick wash in the airport's bathroom before going through to the arrivals lounge.

 

Niamh's agent had sent written instructions, which Ted contrived to dig out of a side pocket of his carry-on.  _Arrive._ Check. _Claim baggage_  – check – everything Ted expected to need was in his carry-on. _Find your escort to the hotel._

 

Ted scanned the thin crowd at the lounge. There were two French families arguing loudly by the ice cream machine, a bored-looking American dressed as a sexy polar bear (his nationality betrayed by a twinkie stuck in his back pocket), and a lazy-eyed man in a trench coat with a notepad and a camera, trying to look nonchalant. Ted caught sight of his name on a sign carried by an attractive young concierge in white.

 

The rental car sent by the hotel was almost twice as long as the parish's little blue Ford. It looked like the kind of a car that had figured out showers, and probably green energy jet propulsion, too. Ted boarded in a daze and the car wound its way to the highway and through a small city. The blue of the sea occasionally flashed in sight behind short flat houses and tall vegetation. The air conditioner blew cool air on Ted's face.

 

He felt like a piece in someone else's puzzle, carried docile towards his appointed slot. What did Niamh really want with him? What was all this for? Ted was uncomfortably reminded of a number of occasions in a long life of near-constant gambling when he'd thought an offer had been too good to be true and it had turned out, in fact, to have been exactly that.

 

As they approached the Emerald Hotel and Resort, the car passed by pools as large as small lakes, with sun chairs dotting the sidelines propping up bikini-clad women in enormous sunglasses and portly men in multicoloured shorts. The sea gleamed just beyond a golf course on one side and a sandy beach on the other. The place looked more like a brochure than the brochure had.

 

This was the sort of thing Ted had looked forward to back before the Hawaiian holiday, instead of the dingy, cockroach-infested room he and Dougal had ended up sharing. They had had about half a day of exploring and sunbathing before Dougal was hopelessly sunburned and confined to the hotel room, and by the end of the evening Ted had fallen off a surfboard and suffered the same fate. Emerald Hotel looked like the kind of a place where you'd fall off a surfboard and into a jacuzzi with complimentary champagne and gold-embroidered towels. Ted felt almost too shabby to put his foot on its paved drive-way.

 

Orchids and exotic flowers Ted couldn't name fronted the hotel's facade. Palm trees shaded the glittering doors of which opened into a white-pillared lounge, where a few guests milled around in leisure suits showing a level of wealth and various levels of taste. Another attractive concierge offered to take Ted's carry-on up to his room. He signed in in a daze and soon found himself in a room twice the size of the living room of the parochial house, with a balcony opening out to a sea view over a copse of dewy, large-leaved trees. He'd never seen anything like it, even in a brochure; the closest equivalent was in one of Mrs Doyle's books, with a title like  _The Captive Heart of Lord Chelborough_  or  _The Texan Oil Millionaire's Kidnapped Virgin Stablehand Bride._

 

He showered and decided to take a little nap in the complimentary silk pyjamas, half convinced he would wake up back in Ireland in a leaky bedroom with the smell of Father Jack wafting in from the hallway.

 

He woke, instead, to a scent of orchids and a discreet knock on the door. The light outside had dimmed towards a glorious sunset, the horizon a glorious pink and yellow. Ted found a hotel dressing gown, likewise complimentary and slippery-silky in a rich burgundy.

 

He squinted blurrily at the dark-haired woman in a neat business suit who stood at the door. For a moment he had been expecting it to be Niamh herself.

 

"Remember me, Father Crilly?"

 

"Ah, oh, yes. Patsie, wasn't it?"

 

"I didn't think you'd forget holing out in a bathroom to escape a horde of middle-aged fans. Of course, back then it was pretty much a normal Sunday night for me."

 

"Excuse me." Ted's brain was still trying to disentangle dream from reality. "I didn't expect to see you here."

 

"Yes, you would have been dealing with Pete earlier, Miss Connelly's Dublin assistant. I'm her new PA."

 

"What happened to Eoin McLove?"

 

"His fiancée didn't agree with me." Patsie shrugged. "It happens. I consider Niamh an improvement. But we're digressing. Miss Connelly would like to invite you to dinner tonight."

 

"Ah, yes. With Dougal, right?"

 

"She'll be in the executive suite, naturally. Around 8 pm. Casual will be fine. I know it's short notice, but tomorrow we're going to be busy with the final wedding rehearsal."

 

"So I'll meet Niamh and Dougal for dinner at their suite, then?"

 

"Ask a concierge if you get lost. And the limo leaves for the rehearsal tomorrow at 10, don't forget. Now if you'll excuse me." Patsie checked her watch, bit her lip and hurried down the hallway towards the lounge.

 

Ted noted she hadn't actually said Dougal was going to be there. This was starting to sound fishy. Was there a reason they didn't want him to see Dougal?

 

Ted's suspicions were confirmed just before 8 pm when a heavily built private bodyguard admitted him into the executive suite. The enormous room, which gave off to what looked like an even larger bedroom on one side, seemed devoid of any company except Niamh. She was a slip of a shape sprawled on the window seat in a loose white top and pleather shorts. There was a lavish dinner laid out on the balcony.

 

She smiled as she got up and stepped into the light. Ted covered his eyes. "Excuse me. I didn't, er, I mean – Very sorry. I can go out again and come back later."

 

Niamh snickered, put her baby on her shoulder and covered her breast. "It's all right, Father. We're finished now. You can look."

 

Ted peeked through his fingers, and lowered his hand only when he was sure there were no more nipples in sight.

 

"Can I call you Ted? Dougal always does."

 

"Ah, yes, Dougal. I expected to see him here."

 

"Emergency dance lessons," Niamh explained, patting the baby on the back. "Patsie finally convinced me there should be a traditional waltz. I learned when I was a wee one. Come on, let's have dinner and you can tell me all about the rigours of travel."

 

Niamh put the baby away in a black crib with the words 'Future of This World' edged on the side. Ted stepped up to the crib to murmur the traditional words of admiration. One baby looked much like any other to him. This one had a crop of dark hair and a scrunched-up face, and seemed to glare up at Ted in disapproval.

 

"You don't feel threatened by having a woman buy you dinner, Father?" asked Niamh once they'd sat at the table, before Ted had even managed to take his first spoonful of minestrone soup.

 

"Good heavens, I'm not as bad as that," said Ted and fumbled with his spoon.

 

"Some men are so old-fashioned about that. You can buy them anything you like as long as you mask it as a business proposal, but heaven forbid you pay their expenses simply to induce them to spend time with you. There's a connotation with whoring that puts dinner dates in a whole new light, don't you think?"

 

Ted managed to swallow his spoonful. "Er, what?"

 

"I want to make absolutely clear where we stand," said Niamh, slapping the table hard enough to make the cutlery jump. "I brought you here to keep an eye on you. Dougal never stops talking about you. It's all Ted this and Ted that."

 

"Miss Connelly--"

 

"The church is getting a lot of bad press out of this affair. I'm not an idiot. Your bishop must be putting pressure on you to stop the wedding. That's why I made sure you haven't got to Dougal in the past couple of months. Now, as long as you don't interfere, and you let the wedding go on as planned, I will record and improve upon your ridiculous 'song' and you'll have a nice bit of extra income. If you so much as float the idea of calling it off, the expenses for this little holiday will mysteriously be attributed to yourself rather than my account –"

 

Ted whimpered.

 

"—and that's not the worst of what I can do to you if you if you refuse to play ball. Dougal talks, and private detectives can confirm what he says. How much embezzlement do you think you can get away with before they put you away? How would you like to go to prison?"

 

"I, I assure you –"

 

"Good." Niamh sat back and smiled. "Do try some falafel, it's the chef's special recipe."

 

-

 

Ted returned to his room feeling what little of the vegetarian feast he had managed to force down under Niamh's persistent pleasantness rumbling to come back up.

 

He had somehow agreed to give his blessing to this hellish union. He still couldn't believe he'd done that. What would the bishop say? What kind of a priest was Ted?

 

It still didn't make sense, even with all the pieces in place. Dougal simply wouldn't have an affair. He barely knew what went where. And with...  _that!_  There was only one conclusion to come to: Dougal was the victim of the worldly wiles of a ruthless, ambitious woman who was about to ruin his livelihood in order to sell more records. He had to be rescued.

 

As Ted crossed the threshold his shoe scuffed an envelope on the floor, apparently slipped under the door. He broke the red seal and unfolded the note within.

 

_You only have a day left. He's in the South Pavilion._

 

There was no signature. Ted turned the letter over and held it to the light. Remembering something he'd read in a detective novel once, he lit one of the tapering candles on the bijou dining table, but no hidden lemon juice writing revealed itself.

 

Then he twigged on to the actual words and rushed out of the room.

 

 


	4. Four

 

 

He hadn't wanted to see Dougal before. Now he needed to. He couldn't let the poor lad marry that dragon.

 

Then again there was the baby... And on the other hand, Ted's reputation. He didn't want to be reassigned to Swaziland for smiling in Dougal's wedding photos, however forced that grin would be. And what did Dougal himself want? Craggy Island with Ted or the Bahamas with Niamh? It didn't seem like a difficult choice.

 

He found one of the attractive concierges in the lobby and was pointed to the South Pavilion. It turned out to be a lit wooden dance floor set upon the sandy beach, with a bar and a bandstand. The season was off-peak, and only a half a dozen or so couples swayed to a tune crooned by a group in pale blue evening jackets, with a few more guests spread around by tables sipping tall colourful drinks. Ted stepped on the platform and shook most of the sand out of his shoes, then looked around and spotted Dougal.

 

His hair was still cut short and ruffled up in that edgy kind of non-Dougaly way, and the beard was just as short and scruffy as it had been in the news clip. Ted couldn't imagine what lengths a man would have to go to maintain a perpetual two-day stubble. Perhaps they had special razors for that sort of thing. Dougal was also wearing faded blue jeans. Ted had never in his life seen Dougal in jeans before.

 

He was waltzing with a regal-looking olive-skinned woman of advanced years. She corrected his arm on her waist. Dougal grinned at her sheepishly and Ted felt a twinge in his chest. For a moment, he'd looked like the old Dougal instead of some fashion magazine doppelganger.

 

"Dougal!"

 

Dougal looked up as a couple passed between them. "Ted? Ted!"

 

The dance master twirled gracefully out of the way and Ted threw his arms around Dougal. Dougal laughed, hugged him back and patted his back. "What are you doing here, Ted?" he said when they withdrew.

 

"Didn't Miss Connelly tell you?"

 

"No no," said the dance master and arranged Ted's arms on Dougal's shoulders and Dougal's on Ted's waist. "Now, one, two, three."

 

"Miss Connelly?" The band struck up another slow waltz and Ted found himself led in the dance. He was not exactly proficient, but Dougal seemed to have picked it up quickly. A light flashed somewhere.

 

"Your fiancée!"

 

"Oh, Niamh, right. What about Niamh?"

 

"Didn't she tell you I was coming to the wedding?"

 

"What wedding?"

 

This was definitely his Dougal. "Yours! In two days!"

 

"Oh, right. No, she didn't mention it, Ted. Did you know they have special razors just to make you look like you haven't shaved in two days? It's mad!"

 

"One, _two_ , three," said the dance master and Ted found himself dipped low. Glasses tinkled at the bar.

 

"Dougal, I need to ask you something," Ted said once he was upright again. "I want you to be completely honest. Do you actually want to marry Niamh?"

 

"Well, yes, Ted, of course I do."

 

"And... Now, you can tell me, whatever the answer is, I won't be mad or blame you in any way. Is that baby yours? You're the father?"

 

"It is, Ted, yes. I am."

 

Ted swallowed. "But do you love her?"

 

Dougal grinned. "Yes, Ted. Of course I love her."

 

"...Oh."

 

They twirled around a few more times while Ted digested this. "I er... I suppose I must... offer my congratulations."

 

"Thanks very much."

 

That was it, then.

 

 

 


	5. Five

 

Ted imagined Bishop Brennan's rage. He'd come out of this looking like a damned liberal. He'd attend the wedding and smile and shake everyone's hand and then, barring Swaziland, go back to Craggy Island to live with Father Jack and Mrs Doyle and write sermons for sheep farmers for the rest of his days. With any luck, the plane would crash first.

 

The dance master declared Dougal a masterpiece of her genius and retired satisfied. They sat down at the bar. Dougal ordered a Shirley Temple and Ted a strong brandy.

 

"So, er, you're looking well," said Ted. "Not sunburned this time, I see."

 

"No, not so much this time, Ted. I spend a lot of the daytime hours indoors playing with the baby or practicing on the keyboard, you know. There's also this extra-strong sun lotion Niamh orders in."

 

"How are you liking being a musician?"

 

"Well, it's not priesting, Ted. You've got to get all the notes right and everything, but it's not that hard. Anyway, Niamh does most of it."

 

"And being a father?"

 

Dougal looked puzzled. "You know what it's like to be a father, Ted."

 

"I mean to the baby! Liberty!"

 

"Oh, yes. Liberty's great."

 

"Right." Ted was momentarily at a loss for subjects. "Did you know our roof caved in at the parochial house?"

 

"Did it, again? It'll be funny to see the old place again after the wedding and everything."

 

"You mean you're coming over to visit?"

 

"When we go home, I mean."

 

"When you go... Dougal, you and Niamh aren't going to live at the parochial house!"

 

"Aren't we?"

 

"No! Are you?"

 

"There you are." A slim arm snaked its way around Dougal's arm and Niamh got up on tippytoes to give him a quick peck. "How did it go?"

 

"How did what go?"

 

"The dance lesson, silly. Come on, show me. Excuse us, Father." Niamh winked at Ted and pulled Dougal onto the dance floor. Ted took the hint and stumbled his way back to the hotel, trailing sand into the lobby.

 

"Do you have a North Pavilion?" he asked at the desk. "Anywhere a man can get a drink that's as far from the South Pavilion as you can get on foot?"

 

The attendant recommended an imitation English pub called Drunken Duck. It sounded perfect. Ted found it on the other side of the resort.

 

It seemed a shame to be downcast in a place like this, but Ted had even lost the taste for emasculatingly fruity beers and low-carb tofu nuts. He was considering ordering a scotch whisky when he noticed another familiar-looking note had found its way on the tray with his fruity beer. It was the same kind of thick paper with a red seal as the note he'd found pushed under his door.

 

Ted looked around the room. There was a handful of customers and only one waiter in sight, with two bartenders polishing glasses behind the chestnut bar. He tried to remember if the waiter who'd handed him the tray had been the tall, dark, attractive one who had guided him to the South Pavilion or the short, perky, attractive one who'd driven him from the airport. The customers seemed unlikely suspects – a lone portly man bent over a book, a group of four very drunk women, and one young couple.

 

Having fixed all their features in his mind as well as he possibly could, Ted tore open the envelope. It was the same handwriting.

 

_I was there. I heard. Do not despair. Be at the Garden Spa at 8:30 am tomorrow. This will be your last chance._

 

This was getting to be a bit much. Not only was he being told what to do by a slip of a girl with big ideas, now he was being ordered about by fancy stationery. Ted thought of tearing the note up, but changed his mind and turned it over instead. He found a ballpoint pen, wrote on it, "Stuff it!" and left it on the table.

 

Nonetheless, on reaching his room, he set his alarm at 8 am.

 

 


	6. Six

 

The Garden Spa was a glass-domed structure overlooking the beach on one side and the pool on the other, shaded by tall palm trees and bushes of exotic plants. There was a Turkish sauna, as unnecessary as that seemed given the local climate, a number of jacuzzis with massage jets, a cold plunge pool, and attendant attractive masseuses.

 

Ted was shown to a changing room and changed into his swimming trunks and one of the hotel's fluffy white bathrobes. On emerging, he tried to peer carefully at the attendants but couldn't determine whether he'd seen either of them in a different white uniform at the South Pavilion or the Drunken Duck. Neither looked familiar, but both seemed quite keen to get him to come in for a massage. He escaped into the juice bar by the cold plunge pool, where he ran into Dougal.

 

The juice bar was surrounded by potted flowers, creating a secluded jungle effect around two benches and a couple of empty tables. Dougal was sitting on one of the benches, smearing his limbs liberally from a large and expensive-looking jar of lotion. He looked rather like a greased dish ready for the oven, but his shorts were the first shorts Ted had ever seen that could actually be called fashionable, with trail-style lacing on the sides and a dark-grey-and-orange design. Ted was starting to get an idea of just how thorough Niamh had been in selecting Dougal's new look.

 

Ted spent some time looking, perhaps wisting just a little, before he came back to himself and called out a good morning.

 

"Oh, Ted! Good morning. Come in for a plunge?"

 

"Yes, I suppose I have," said Ted and seated himself carefully on the bench, far enough to be safe from lotion splashes. "Dougal..." He fiddled with the belt of his fluffy dressing gown. "You know, I am very happy for you."

 

"Thanks, Ted."

 

"Everyone will miss you at the parish. Bishop Brennan would love to see you back home again."

 

"Would he, Ted?"

 

"He would, yes."

 

"That's funny. I thought he didn't like me, seeing how he was always calling me an eejit and telling me to go boil my head."

 

"Yes, well... Perhaps we were all a little harsh on you sometimes. I'm just trying to say that it's not too late to change your mind and go back to being a priest." His conscience caught up with him. "At least, that is, unless you're  _sure_  Liberty is your baby."

 

"Sure I'm sure."

 

"How on earth did that happen, anyway? I thought you were afraid of women."

 

"I am, yes, Ted."

 

"Just not Niamh?"

 

"Oh, especially Niamh, Ted." Dougal shook his head with a grin. "I am more afraid of her than any other woman I've ever met."

 

Ted rubbed his temples, went to order a tall Orangina – spiked – from the refreshingly unattractive juice bar attendant, and returned to Dougal. "Let me see if I understand correctly. You are terrified of Niamh, yet you slept with her."

 

"Well, we didn't sleep," said Dougal. "We tried it later on but she said I talk in my sleep too much. I've got a room next to hers here."

 

"Right, but you had sex. Did she… force you in some way?"

 

"Oh, no, Ted."

 

"What exactly happened at the day of the protests? I remember seeing you dodge a water balloon when Mrs Schneider's aim got shaky. Where did you go?"

 

Dougal stared at Ted blankly. Ted sighed. "You wore your Wednesday shoes even though it was a Saturday."

 

"Oh, yes, that! Yes, I remember thinking I should've brought some balloons myself if we were going to play a game, and then something about a giant hot dog, and then Niamh snuck me and some of the others out in a big limo. We went to a pub."

 

"And you got drunk?"

 

"No, I had 'virgin' everything like you told me, though they looked at me funny when I asked for a 'virgin' rum and cola. Tasted just like cola."

 

"And then?"

 

"Well, so, Niamh was looking at me kind of funny and then she took me up to her hotel room."

 

"All right, I see..."

 

"And when we got to the hotel room she took her top off! And her bra! And she kissed me! On the mouth, Ted."

 

"You really don't need to..."

 

"And I was so scared I couldn't move, so she put her top back on and put some music on and read a book for a bit. And so then nine months later she had a baby."

 

"Wait... was that it?"

 

Dougal thought it over. "She asked me if I wanted anything, but I was too scared to speak, so she just called you to come pick me up."

 

Excited, Ted grabbed Dougal by the arms to shake him, couldn't catch a hold on the slippery skin, and wiped his hands on the fluffy robe. "Dougal, do you remember all those times I told you where babies come from?"

 

"Sure I do, Ted."

 

"And the part about... you know... your lad and her..."

 

"Oh, we didn't do any of that, Ted, no."

 

"Well, you see, Dougal, that is rather an integral part of the whole process."

 

"What do you mean?"

 

"If there isn't any of the..." Ted resorted to a discreet hand gesture, "…there is no baby."

 

"But what about the part where a man and a lady love each other very much and lie down together in the nip?"

 

"I see where you might have got mixed up. It's actually just the... the semen and the... Look, I'll draw you a picture later, all right? The bottom line is that if you kept your trousers on then Niamh's baby isn't your baby. Do you understand?"

 

"God, Ted. That's a relief." Dougal sagged against the back of the bench.

 

"Is it?"

 

"Oh, yes, Ted. I really do like Liberty but I thought that if we had a baby then I must love Niamh very much, and I didn't like it at all, Ted. I thought being in love was terrible, like walking on live otters and chewing ice cubes while trying to balance a six-armed monkey on your head. I bet it's actually nothing like that, is it, Ted?"

 

"Actually, that's pretty apt." Dougal looked alarmed, so Ted added firmly, "You are not in love with Niamh. We need to get you out of here."

 

"Back to Craggy Island?" Dougal brightened.

 

"Back to Craggy Island." But how?

 

 


	7. Seven

 

Conscious of prying eyes and pricked ears, Ted ordered breakfast up to his room (charged to Niamh) and he and Dougal hashed out the plan over deviled eggs and tea served in coconut cups.

 

"If we're going to bolt today, it will have to be after the wedding rehearsal. If you don't show up, they'll miss you immediately. We'll have a few hours' head start if we sneak out this afternoon, maybe even overnight if we're lucky."

 

"Right."

 

"Here's what we should do. First, you grab all the ready cash and credit cards you can find. Come to my room when you have it. I'll step out during the rehearsal and find an ATM. Wait for my signal. Then we get a taxi and buy tickets at the airport. Get out, nice and quick, and maybe stay at Bishop Brennan's place for a while. He'll put us up if he has to." Ted hoped so, anyway – going home or to a hotel would mean facing whatever revenge Niamh could conjure up on their own.

 

"God, Ted, it's exciting, isn't it? It's almost like a film. Hey, are we going to be on TV this time?"  
  


Ted hoped not.

 

After dispatching Dougal back to Niamh's suite, Ted counted his ready cash. Even if he popped a few hawkable items from the room into his suitcase, he doubted he'd have enough to cover one ticket back to Ireland, let alone two. It was all up to Dougal. That was never a good plan, but it was the only one they had.

 

It was underhanded and risky, to be sure, but he didn't want to give Niamh time to intimidate Dougal into staying. He told himself that with her money, she wasn't going to need a husband anyway. So what if Ted was stealing away a woman's fiance? If she had such a hankering for slow priests whose bodies worked on cartoon logic, she shouldn't have tried to take Ted's.

 

Two limos pulled up to the lobby doors at 10 am. Ted had waited at the lobby for half an hour, but Dougal had not reappeared. Patsie herded Ted into one of limos along with a bodyguard and a small woman who turned out to be a vegan chef, a Buddhist, and Niamh's maid of honour. As the limo rumbled to life, Ted caught sight of Dougal disappearing into the other limo, his arm firmly clutched by Niamh, along with another guard and a plump woman in purple velvet bedecked in occult bangles. Unless there was a throng waiting for them at the church, it was evidently due to be a small wedding.

 

Dougal would only have had about half an hour to change. The chances of successful theft– that is, collection of funds, seemed low. They might have to try again.

 

Ted should not have been surprised when the destination they arrived at was not a chapel. The limos stopped in front of a sign declaring the location the Eve's Grotto private function garden and restaurant. It was surrounded by tall greenery so thick it created perfect privacy within.

 

The gates were opened by a smiling woman in a flowery dress. The bodyguards flanked Niamh and Dougal and they all marched through into a tropical garden, up a stone path to an opening with a natural pool. Water rushed down into it from a waterfall eight feet above ground-level. A small open-air restaurant flanked the pool, its tables laid out with white cloths and with a bartender and waiters ready to receive guests.

 

"Isn't it lovely?" said the small American woman. "I had my wedding under a waterfall, too. I remember it like yesterday. Jennie looked so beautiful, wet hair down to her waist those days, and her in nothing but flowers. Of course, that was before she turned into a raging bitch. Oh, to be married again. They do say third time's the charm."

 

"Good God."

 

"Of course we had a shaman bless our union and Niamh's got a witch."

 

"A witch?" Ted's eyes found the cheerful fat woman with the occult bangles, who was even now hanging a leather pouch around Niamh's neck.

 

"And we had flowers, you know, strategically placed, and all the guests were dressed. I wish I'd thought of having everybody nude. Much better this way." She shrugged out of her light jacket and started undoing her blouse.

 

Ted looked up. It seemed everybody was undoing something. Dougal was handing his jacket to Niamh. Even the bodyguards were dropping their trousers.

 

"So full of ideas, that Niamh," said the small woman. "Like having the wedding straight away but telling everyone it was a rehearsal so the press couldn't possibly catch wind of it. I suppose you have to be clever like that when you're famous."

 

"Wait, what?"

 

"Didn't you know? Get a move on with that jacket, Father. You're not shy, are you?"

 

Ted looked around frantically. The witch was waving papers that looked rather like a marriage register. Niamh was already down to her underpants.

 

Ted felt faint. He clutched at his heart, and heard a crinkle of paper inside his inner pocket. He reached in and pulled out another envelope with a red seal. He tore it open.

 

_I told you this morning was your last chance. Idiot._

 

After that, things became a blur. Ted found himself running across the Grotto to grab Dougal's arm, and then the two of them were racing towards the gate. There was a shout and from the corner of his eye he could see one bodyguard hopping with his trousers around his ankles, and then a sharp whistle passing by his ear which he wished wasn't a bullet, even after the loud tinny bang that followed it. Then he was down the street and around the corner and the two of them were swallowed up in a midday market crowd.

 

 


	8. Eight

 

Ted squinted at the horizon. The morning sun's rays hit the surface of the ocean and shot back into his eyes. The sunshade on his pink baseball cap did little to help and Dougal was wearing their only pair of sunglasses, as well as being wrapped two scarves, a cap and a light poncho, partly for anonymity, and partly because they'd left too suddenly to pack any sun lotion. The fishing boat angled up as a particularly strong wave caught it at the side, then dipped down again, a motion Ted was only just getting used to.

 

Joe, the lean, weathered fisherman who owned the boat, had no protection against the sun aside from something shaped more like a beansack than a hat. He seemed satisfied with it, but then Joe always seemed satisfied, in a stony kind of way, like a gargoyle at peace with the world. In two days, Ted had barely got him to say three words, and that thanks to extensive training with Father Stone.

 

The boat stank of fish, though the smell was less pressing now that they were well out to sea. Islands Ted didn't recognize dotted the horizon.

 

They'd boarded Joe's boat, the  _Jackie Onassis,_ in the afternoon of the previous day just as Joe was unloading the day's haul. The one thing that had gone right in their disastrous escape was that Dougal had managed to grab his wallet on the way to the limo. Ted had taken out the daily limit and stuffed his inside pockets with cash. Joe had taken a handsome payout and asked no questions. The two priests had holed out on the boat overnight, dining on fish sandwiches and rum.

 

Thanks to the rum, Ted had managed to doze intermittently despite being pinned on a wooden floor between a barrel and Dougal. Dougal had gone to sleep inside two minutes after their goodnights, despite the lack of mattress and just a bit of canvas for cover, muttering atomic masses and U.S. state capitals. If Ted closed his eyes and ignored the rocking he could almost imagine they were back at the parochial house on a day when Mrs Doyle was laundering the mattresses and someone had dunked raw fish in the bedroom for some reason.

 

Dougal didn't seem concerned about their situation, but then he was Dougal. He seemed happy to let Ted make all the decisions again.

 

In a day or two, Joe had promised, they'd get to Dead Man's Cay on Long Island and to an airport no-one would (hopefully) be watching. Then home, and to Bishop Brennan. Ted was aware that they could be on their way from one bad situation to another. At this point he barely cared, as long as he could put his feet up and have a good night's rest. He'd not thought of the parochial house this warmly since their caravan holiday in Kilkenny, and that was saying something.

 

There had been no signs of pursuit. Ted was beginning to think he may have overreacted, but being shot at tends to put a man on edge.

 

"Is that a boat?" said the pile of mismatched fabrics that was Dougal.

 

"Where?" Ted grabbed the pair of sub-par binoculars he'd managed to grab off the same stall as the poncho and the baseball cap.

 

"Coast guard," said Joe.

 

Ted found the white shape on the horizon and focused on it. The large white motorboat was racing right towards them.

 

"Oh God, they're coming for us. Joe, can you put some distance between us?"

 

Joe gave Ted a dark look, shook his head, and made his longest speech yet. " _Jackie_ 's no racer. Can't have any trouble. Put you down on that rock."

 

The 'rock' Joe pointed at was a tiny island overgrowing with thick vegetation, part of the vast archipelago thrusting out of the sea at the south end of Great Exuma.

 

"Is it safe?"

 

"Nothing there but birds and bugs."

 

They lowered Joe's rowboat and, after a couple of tries, got it headed in the right direction while Joe turned the  _Jackie_  around to shield them from sight. Dougal pulled the oars while Ted scouted for a likely place to land. They found a cove so small it barely warranted the name and pulled the boat up a short sandy beach.

 

Ted climbed up a few rocks to get a view through the tall grasses to the open sea. The white coast guard motorboat was just pulling up to the  _Jackie Onassis_. Ted could see through the binoculars that the uniformed men on board were accompanied by a woman in a dark suit. It was Patsie.

 

Patsie climbed on Joe's boat, took something out of her jacket and held it out to him. Joe nodded and pointed a finger towards one of the islands in the north, closer to mainland. Ted breathed out a sigh of relief.

 

Patsie returned to the white boat and it raced off. Ted watched as Joe scratched his head and looked right back at him in the island. His expression was inscrutable. Then he shook his head sadly and returned to his controls.

 

The  _Jackie Onassis_  turned around and started puttering off towards the open sea.

 

"No, wait!" cried Ted, though Joe was far too far to hear him. "Come back!"

 

It was too late. Their only connection to the outside world was fading into the gleam of the bright sea.

 

 


	9. Nine

 

"I wonder if there are pirates here," said Dougal, looking around the lush beach. "It looks just like in the movies. I bet there are pirates. And dinosaurs."

 

Ted groaned into his hands, rocking himself from side to side. "We have no food, Dougal. There's no knowing if there's fresh water here. Do you understand? We may not have any water to drink!" Ted was parched. He was just realizing how parched he was.

 

"Right," said Dougal. "How about tea?"

 

Ted stared at him, and re-weighed the wisdom of risking life, limb and wallet to retrieve a man with the attention span of a squirrel and the intelligence of a particularly slow goldfish.

 

"No? Milk, then?"

 

"Coconut milk!" There was a copse of palm trees with mature fruit clustered near the crown.

 

It took Ted three tries to clamber up a short palm tree to snatch at the coconuts. He secured some midsized ones under an arm. Dougal had already been up and down two trees.

 

"All right there, Ted?" Dougal called from the ground next to his pile of coconuts. "Did you see the pirate camp?"

 

"The what?"

 

"Over there, Ted."

 

Ted looked over the tops of palm trees and a bunch of other trees he didn't recognize – elms or whatever – and saw the top of a thatched roof poke out from the foliage. "Dougal! We're saved!"

  
"Are we going to join the pirate crew, Ted?"

 

"They're probably just fishermen like Joe. This isn't the uncharted wilds, you know." Ted slid off the tree with the agility of newfound hope.

 

"Because I'd have to start thinking of a really good pirate name."

 

The two beaches were separated by a thick grove, with tangled roots and low-growing bushes making the way to the cabin seem inpenetrable until Ted found a small beaten path. The grove chittered and cawed around them. Dougal kept going back and forth between Hooktoe Johnny and Billy the Very Angry Rabbit.

 

The path opened up ahead, leaves parting to let in a patch of sunshine. Since he couldn't entirely rule out pirates, Ted motioned for Dougal to stay back and creeped quietly closer. He peeked out from between leaves and scanned the little opening with the bamboo house with a thatched roof.

 

"Nobody here," he concluded. There was a fireplace set up but unlit and the sand on the beach that stretched out just a few feet away from it was unmarked by human feet. Ted crept closer to explore.

 

It was a perfect little hut. The door was latched with a loop that could be undone from the outside with the aid of a stick. Inside, there were two pallets of straw on a bed of leaves, two fishing rods, rolled-up blankets and a box of equipment. Everything was neatly laid out and had a curiously unlived-in feel. There was no debris of humanity, not so much as a stray fish bone, and the leaves were pristine and uncracked.

 

"I'm sure whoever this belongs to wouldn't mind us using it for a while. We'd best go look around, though. Maybe there's a way off the island."

 

They made it about twelve feet from the house before the rain started.

 

The warm, heavy wall of water slammed down on them like no rain ever had, even in Craggy Island. Ted reached for the shape he hoped was Dougal and dragged him back to the cabin. The sound of water crashing down on the roof was enormous.

 

Both of them were soaked to the skin. Dougal shed his poncho and hat and Ted struggled out of his coat, and they laid the clothes in a soggy heap near the entrance.

 

How long would they have to stay in? Was this the rainy season? Did the Bahamas have a rainy season? Ted had no idea. At least they still had some coconuts.

 

"Right, then," said Dougal after a while. "How about a game of charades?"

 

-

 

Having ruled out charades after half an hour of Dougal trying to mime  _Rain Man_ , Ted spent some time trying to build a fire. It wasn't going much better than the charades.

 

"Ted?"

 

"Yes, Dougal?" Ted sighed and tossed down the stubbornly unlit sticks he'd been rubbing together.

 

"How is it that you know you're in love?"

 

Ted sat back on his haunches and regarded the dark shape that was Dougal. "You just know, Dougal."

 

"But that's just it, Ted. I don't know. And all the songs and television and everything are saying different things about. Either it's in his kiss or you'd turn your back on your best friend if he let her down or it's a many-splendoured thing or it hurts or it's all you need, and I just can't keep up. The only thing I knew for sure was that if a man and a lady--"

 

"Let me stop you right there. I don't want you making that mistake again. It's just the semen and the egg and the nine months' pregnancy. That's all there is to making a baby."

 

"So, then, how do you know if you're really, truly in love?"

 

"I suppose you just--" Ted stopped to think about it. He'd sort of been in love with Polly Clarke, hadn't he? Or at least he'd wanted to come with her to the city and have cocktail parties and surprise sex in the hallway. And before her, there had been... magazines. And awkward flirtations. And the girl he'd been madly in love with in his 20s and the boy he hadn't been able to stop thinking at fifteen but that wasn't the same thing, of course, because, well, because it wasn't, so there. And then the seminary, which rather put a stop to all that sort of thing. Mostly. "I suppose you just find someone you want to be with all the time and don't ever want to live away from. They make you feel safe and um, you, er, want to touch them and take care of them and, well, to sleep with them, if you know what I mean. And you just really, really like them a lot. Much more than you like other people."

 

"I see." For a moment, there was nothing but the darkness, the patter of rain, and the smell of wet leaves. "Ted?"

 

"Yes, Dougal?"

 

"I think I'm in love with  _you_!"

 

"What?!"

 

"Well, you know, Ted. I really missed you and Niamh said if I didn't shut up about you she'd send me to bed without dinner, so then I just thought about you a lot. And I feel safe around you, Ted. You always know what to do. And I can't wait to get back to Craggy Island so I can sleep in my own bed and you can sleep in yours and it'll be all cosy and warm all night with the windows creaking and Father Jack making those gurgling noises down the hallway."

 

"That's not what I meant," said Ted. There seemed to be no escaping a direct mention. "I meant 'sleeping with' as in  _sex_ , Dougal. Kissing and hugging and... all the rest of it."

 

"Ah, right."

 

Ted felt he'd narrowly avoided a dreadful fate. It was a rare occasion for him. Dreadful fates were rather his forte. He let out a choked chortle and tried a manly punch in Dougal's arm, which missed in the dark. He pulled his fist back in his lap and felt awkward. It was rather like being fifteen again.

 

"So, all the stuff you said before  _and_  kissing and hugging and sex and all that stuff?

 

"That's about it," said Ted. "Anyway, you shouldn't be in love with anyone. If you've learned anything on this adventure it should be to stay away from all that romance stuff."

 

"Sure, Ted. Just to be on the safe side, though, would you mind if I...?"

 

"If you what?"

 

"Well, you know."

 

"Either say it or do it, Dougal, whatever it is."

 

"All right."

 

There was a rustle of straw and then a weight settled into Ted's lap. Warm hands cupped his face. It took Dougal a couple of misses before he managed to find Ted's mouth with his own.

 

One cool, detached part of Ted's mind thought he really should have seen this coming, and marvelled at what a curiously tight ball of emotion could be built up out of years' worth of repression, subtle homophobia, blue balls, and love all evoked in a single moment. It was at this point that the rest of Ted short-circuited all thought-processes because while he did love Dougal, of course he did, it wasn't the sort of thing someone with years' worth of repression, subtle homophobia and blue balls could think about while being kissed.

 

Dougal pulled back, as if waiting for reaction. Ted found even a panicked gurgle was still locked into the back of his throat, and it was still working its way out when Dougal leaned in and kissed him again, soft dry lips fitting themselves on his.

 

"Ha-h-ha," Ted managed when Dougal sat back. He swallowed, and said in a voice he was surprised to hear pitch itself to a fairly normal range, "How... did you find that, then?"

 

"It was alright," said Dougal. "I mean, I'd still rather, I don't know, play Hungry Hungry Hippos, or have a whole jar of jam all to myself. But you know how I feel about jam, Ted."

 

"Right." Ted felt relieved, then slightly offended, until he remembered how much Dougal liked jam. It was right around the right ballpark between a disastrous result and a slightly disparaging one. Not to mention it could hardly be called Ted's best work since he'd mainly been frozen in sexual panic. "There you are then. That's the difference. You have to want to kiss someone more than you want to eat a whole jar of jam."

 

"Whoa!" said Dougal as he considered the magnitude of romantic love.

 

Ted went back to rubbing his sticks together with renewed vigour, but they concluded the evening without a fire, swaddled in blankets and full of rainwater and coconut milk.

 

The morning broke bright and cloudless. If it was the rainy season, Ted decided, it must have been a brief one. The ocean lay calm and flat all the way to the horizon, accentuated with a smattering of islands. He lay their still-soggy clothes out onto the warm sands to dry and was just contemplating trying for some more coconuts when Dougal streaked past him in his undies and splashed right into the water.

 

"You'll get sunburned!" Ted called out after him, but Dougal had already sunken under the transparent waves. Ted wondered for a panicked moment if Dougal even knew how to swim, before he saw his head break the surface. Dougal grinned at Ted and dove back under like a seal.

 

Ted was hungry but he was safe and warm and this was, after all, pretty damn close to a paradise. A mental hop and a skip, and he could imagine there was a hotel on the other side of the island, that this was just a normal holiday, and there were drinks and a jacuzzi waiting for them when they decided to get back. The thought alone lifted his spirits, and Ted pulled off his white undershirt and waded after Dougal into the cool water.

 

He splashed and dove while Dougal collected shiny stones from the waterbed. Ted couldn't remember the last time he'd played around in natural water, at least on purpose and without chilling his balls off. Chased by an incredibly scary rockstar or not, Ted mused as he floated in the sunlight, this was the best holiday he had had since... well, since Las Vegas. He tried not to think about how that had ended.

 

Dougal was starting to look decidedly pink around the shoulders, so Ted ushered him back into shade, while he lay his own pasty self down on the sands to dry next to their clothes. Hot sand had got everywhere, but it only seemed to make it all better somehow.

 

Hunger eventually caught up with them. Ted put his trousers back on and wrapped his shirt around his head like he'd seen people do on the telly, picked up his dry sticks from yesterday and went to work in the direct sunlight. From somewhere deep in a memory full of reality TV he dragged out the mechanism for sparking a fire: a piece of string, shoestring in this case, a flat piece of wood with a long piece of wood rolled endlessly until it starts to smoke. He got to work.

 

The previous night he'd tried to make fire with soggy wood in the dark. Now, on the dry sand in hot midday sunlight, it took him ten minutes to light some straw. Within fifteen, they had a fire. Meanwhile Dougal sat in the shadow of the trees with a fishing rod, patient as a stone buddha, but unlikely to catch anything with just a bit of coconut meat as bait. Ted, as distasteful as it was, ended up picking up a couple of docile crabs and cracking them open for lunch. He made Dougal look away.

 

They had, by now, been missing for two days. Ted wondered if anyone had notified Mrs Doyle. Had Joe left them here to die or was he planning on returning when the coast guard wasn't around? How long before it would be safe to try to flag down a fishing boat? How long, come to think of it, could they survive on crabs? Ted still had the wads of cash safe, if moist, in his jacket pocket, but they wouldn't do them much good the way things stood now. He'd have to make a plan.

 

He was about to talk it over with Dougal, but just then a fish bit the hook, and there was a great deal of excitement over wrestling a cod onto the beach and murdering it for dinner, and then they had to have a little talk about cod heaven, and then more fuss when it came to skinning and cooking dinner. Ted had rarely felt more like a man, even after winning a match of football against Dick Byrne.

 

After dinner he felt too full and drowsy for plans. Instead, they sat on the beach watching the sun sink into the horizon in a brilliant display of colours. The two refugees went to sleep with the plan still unhashed, under itchy functional blankets, the sound of the sea and the jungle around them.

 

Ted slept long and heavy. The sun was high in the sky by the time sleep began to retreat, a malleable dream world of sand racing and flying Madonna heads making way for the more prosaic sand-strewn straw pallet and Dougal snoring lightly in the light filtering through the bamboo. Half-way into waking, Ted thought for the first time how lovely it would be to stay here, for things to remain as simple as this: fishing, sunshine, rain, and no bishops anywhere. He thought of Craggy Island and the excitement of Las Vegas and every disappointment he'd ever had to face out there in the real world. And Dougal. Who was kind and warm and... loved him unconditionally?

 

Then he thought how odd it was to have a bamboo hut on an island where no bamboo grew.

 

It was then that he heard the helicopter.

 

 


	10. Ten

 

It was a rather nice police station, really.

 

It had an open-air quality, certainly, predicated by the climate, Ted assumed. There was even a flowerbed, and an imposing pair of uniformed officers at the front desk. The smell of drunkard wafting from the holding cell was both universal to all the police stations Ted had been to so far – which was quite a few – and achingly familiar.

 

"Run that by me again," said Detective Roche, who sat across from Ted at a wooden table in the interrogation room, chewing tobacco. He was a wide-set, slow-speaking man in his forties, whose only deviation from the character of an archetypal police officer appeared to be his crisp white shirt. It was almost an insult to the general impression that there weren't any sweat or coffee stains on the collar.

 

"Which part would you like me to clarify?"

 

"Start with the rockstar."

 

"Right. Niamh Connelly, a rockstar as you say, offered to cover a song I wrote for the Eurovision Song Contest and pay out royalties, so she flew me over here and booked me a five-star room at the Emerald Resort."

 

"Of course."

 

"She was getting married to my curate..."

 

"Who is an Irish Catholic priest, of course, like you."

 

"That's right. But we had a little talk and Father McGuire thought better of it. We meant to leave quietly, but it turned out the wedding rehearsal would be the actual wedding, so you see I simply had to grab him and make a run for it or he might have ended up excommunicated."

 

"For marrying a rockstar? Imagine that."

 

"So we spent a couple of days hiding out on a fishing boat, in case her bodyguards came looking for us."

 

"Naturally."

 

"Only we were abandoned by the fisherman on this island, and we found a little hut, and we made do. We just needed shelter until we'd be rescued. We were definitely going to pay for the use of the hut once we could, fair and square."

 

"With the loose cash you had stuffed in your jacket?"

 

"Yes, of course."

 

"Which was your own money--"

 

"Well, Father McGuire's, really--"

 

"...Which you had taken out because you were worried that the rockstar would find a way to drain those accounts to stop you leaving the country."

 

"Yes, that's right. We really had no way of knowing the island was a reality TV show set. I'd never even heard of 'Marooned' until the camera crew showed up with the underwear model and the soap actress. And you know the rest."

 

"Citizen's arrest by crew on suspicion of unlawful trespass," said the officer, tapping the file in front of him.

 

"An honest mistake and I assured them we have no plans on suing at the moment. Well, if that's all, I'd like to collect Father McGuire and see about getting a plane back to Ireland."

 

"Not quite so fast, Father Crilly," said the detective and spat out his tobacco. "Just a few more details. What did you say that fishing boat was called?"

 

"The  _Jackie Onassis_."

 

"Owned by Joe Chevalier. I know him. And did you hire him before or after you robbed the liquor store?"

 

"Ah ha," said Ted, waggling a finger. "I see what you're doing. You think I'm lying, don't you?"

 

Roche raised his eyebrows, revealing a pair of beady eyes underneath. "Now why would I think that?" He pushed his chair back and got to his feet. "Let's get you back to the cell and we'll check it out. I'm sure it will all clear up by morning. In the meanwhile, whenever you want to talk about where that money really came from, you let us know."

 

-

 

After the straw pallets and the hard wood floor of the fishing boat the thin mattresses of the cell seemed practically luxurious. Ted thought Roche might have placed him and Dougal in different holding cells but since the station only had one cellblock they were separated only by a wall of bars. Dougal was sequestered with the sleepy drunk while Ted had a cell to himself.

 

There was a sink that gave cold and somewhat dubious water on Ted's side. He washed his face and, through the bars and with the aid of an edge of the much-damaged poncho dipped in water, Dougal's as well. They were both ragged and sandy. Ted had grown a scruffy stubble and Dougal was a familiar shade of skinned salmon where he wasn't bearded. He'd be brown as a nut in a week. Ted had to admit they didn't look very priestly at the moment – depending, of course, on the kind of priest you were thinking of. Troglodyte hermits sprang to mind.

 

"Ted?" asked Dougal as Ted was wiping a bit of coconut milk off Dougal's collar.

 

"Yes, Dougal?"

 

"Thanks for coming to get me."

 

"Dougal, I dragged you from a life of luxury and got us locked up in a foreign police station."

 

"Yeah, that's what I mean, Ted,” said Dougal earnestly. “I wasn't sure you'd want to come and get me but you did in the end, so. Thanks very much."

 

Ted paused midwipe because his mind was suddenly going into dangerous places. He scrambled. "Yeah, well, I. That is, well. You know, Dougal. Even though you're, you know. We are, I mean. I wouldn't. Not if you were really-- You're, uh. I mean I-- Of course I would-- But not because-- I mean, let's not-- It's just, see, how should I--"

 

"Pansies," said the drunk, rolled on his side and went back to sleep.

 

They went to bed early, because being stuck in prison was quite boring. It was rather like home, except there weren't even any books to read. Ted lay awake watching the sun refuse to go down before 9 o'clock and thought about Dougal. A lot. When he finally fell asleep, with the sun just sinking into the sea, he dreamed of bunnies and dancing hats, because dreams are fickle bastards and often refuse to be relevant to the narrative of your life.

 

Nine hours is enough sleep even for hardened veterans of the clergy, so both Ted and Dougal were up early the next morning when the guard came clattering his baton on the bars. The drunk groaned in pain. "Get up, priests," the guard called out. "Someone here to see you."

 

Detective Roche entered, flanked by a tall, wide man in black wearing sunglasses and sporting a crew-cut. Ted wasn't surprised to see the diminutive form that strode into the cell block hallway after them, flanked by Patsie and another enormous bodyguard.

 

"Oh, hello, Niamh," said Dougal and waved at her cheerfully.

 

"Good morning, gentlemen," said Roche, and turned to Niamh. "See anyone you recognize?"

 

Niamh crossed her arms and let her gaze travel between Dougal and Ted. "That," she said, pointing at Dougal, "is my fiance. And  _that_ ," she said, pointing at Ted, "is the man who kidnapped him from our wedding."

 

"I did not!" Ted protested. "Don't listen to her, she is evil! She  just wanted to marry him for the PR! Dougal's coming home because that's what he wants to do. Dougal, tell them."

 

"Yes, Dougal." Niamh came up to lean against the bars of Dougal's cell. Dougal grinned in terror and took a step back. "Tell us how we were going to get married in a beautiful ceremony just when this patriarchal outdated bully took you away to brainwash you back into the corrupt church." She reached a slim arm through the bars. "Tell us how we were going to smash all preconceptions about traditional marriage."

 

"Niamh, to be honest," said Dougal, "I don't even know what any of that means."

 

She looked at him hard. "We talked about this. Remember? When I came to you a few months back? You said you liked babies and I made a proposition. You  _agreed_ , Dougal. Don't tell me you've changed your mind."

 

"You know what you did!" Ted accused her. "You manipulated him! I had to save him from you!"

 

Niamh turned a cool gaze on Ted. "I made him a proposal, just like I made one to you about your ridiculous 'song'."

 

"Oh, right, and I suppose he  _agreed_  to be told he was a father when he wasn't? You lied to him!"

 

"I never told him any such thing," Niamh snapped. "I told him he  _could_  be Liberty's father, if he wanted to. Liberty's  _step_ father. For a while, anyway. I never expected it to last, and I was fine with that. A married priest is a slap in the face of the church, but a divorced one? You could have had him back in a few months."

 

"Oh."

 

"Niamh," asked Dougal. "Would you kill crabs for me and play charades when it's raining and get shot at just because you didn't want me to be unhappy?"

 

"What? What's that got to do with anything?"

 

"Because I don't think I'd do any of those things for  _jam_."

 

Niamh stepped back. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

 

"I'd like to go home with Ted now if it's all the same to you. Sorry. Thanks for all the music lessons and the sun lotion and everything, and best of luck with the baby even though it isn't mine."

 

"Dougal—" Niamh's voice had dropped several dozen degrees from warm to freezing.

 

"Okay, calm down, everyone," said Detective Roche. "If you'll come with me, Miss, we'll take your statement and sort things out."

 

"If you two think you're getting away with this – this breach of contract...!"

 

"Miss—"

 

"—You don't bloody know who you're dealing with."

 

Patsie lay a hand on Niamh's sleeve. "Niamh, please..."

 

"—I have sold millions of records. You don't just--"

 

"Niamh." Patsie leaned in and urgently whispered something in Niamh's ear. Ted thought he saw her mouth 'police station'. Niamh visibly deflated, though the rigid set of her jaw did not soften.

 

"Fine," was all she said before turning and marching out before Detective Roche.

 

Ted rushed to the barred wall as soon as they were gone. "That was brave, Dougal. I'm proud of you."

 

"Thanks very much, Ted."

 

"But, Dougal – do you realize what you just threw away? The excitement, the luxury, a glamorous career? And I don't think you'll get another chance to have a baby, either."

 

"Are you saying we should steal Niamh's baby?"

 

"No! I just mean – the kind of life she could give you – well, it's something else, not like being stuck on Craggy Island."

 

"No, it's not," said Dougal with a shake of his head, and came up to the bars. "I can't wait to get home." Ted was just trying to figure out what to say to that when Dougal leaned through the bars and kissed him.

 

Ted was the most shocked at himself for not being any more shocked. "I thought you didn't like that."

 

"But I  _really_  like you, Ted," said Dougal and kissed him again.

 

"You keep doing it."

 

"Doing what?" said Dougal and did it again.

 

"This," said Ted, grabbed Dougal's face.

 

He was going to Hell, he really was, if there was a Hell, although he could barely imagine it being worse than some of the places he'd been in already. But he was aching and burned-out and he loved Dougal and, God, he hadn't been kissed in twenty years, and they were still priests, and  _men_ , and it was  _Dougal_ , and he'd have to sort out which of those was the worst part later, but right now he wanted his Hollywood kiss. And Dougal. To come back to Craggy Island with him and never go away again.

 

"Ted?" said Dougal after a while.

 

"Mmm?"

 

"I think I'm warming up to it."

 

-

 

Ted's lips were tingling and his head was swimming a little and his belly felt a touch queasy but in a  _good_  way and it wasn't exactly like balancing a six-armed monkey while chewing ice cubes but not too far from it either. He had little time to consider the implications, though, because he and Dougal were being handed release papers and a man with a giant moustache who looked strangely familiar was standing by the door, while a lazy-eyed man lurked behind the couch with a camera. How many men did Ted know who had giant moustaches?

 

"Sorry for all the trouble," Ted said to Detective Roche, and lied, "This isn't at all the sort of thing we would normally get involved with."

 

"I'm just glad to see it all sorted," said the Detective, winked, and nodded at the man with the moustache.

 

Ted trawled through his memory. Those long, drooping moustaches over a portly frame, rather like a walrus. That bowtie, and that pipe. He imagined a chef's hat, and the image of the juice bar at the Garden Spa sprang to mind. Then the Drunken Duck, and the figure of a man bent over a book. Then the Seven Strangers, and the Italian tourist slipping into a room in the hallway, right across from Ted's.

 

"It was you!" said Ted, and went straight over to the man, who took his pipe out of his mouth and made a sketchy bow. "You're the mysterious note-writer!"

 

"Oh, is he?" said Dougal, slipping his hand under Ted's arm. "What mysterious note-writer?"

 

"Angelo Ronzitti at your service," said the portly man, with a thick Italian accent. "This has been my first assignment in person with you, though I followed the Pennsylvania escape closely from the background, so to speak. Remarkable work. I am very pleased to meet you at last."

 

"Vatican?" said Ted weakly.

 

"Precisely. Bishop Brennan felt you might need a little looking after. We have paid your bail..."

 

"But no bail had been set yet."

 

"Detective Roche and I decided to cut out the middleman, so to speak."

 

"Ah."

 

"My employer decided to allow Father McGuire either to disgrace the church or to return to it of his own free will. Any public effort to extricate him would have given Miss Connelly just what she wanted. As it is, she's simply been jilted. Let us hope the process will continue to be as painless as it has been thus far."

 

"Painless, is that what it's been?"

 

"For the church, Father." Ronzitti smiled. "And now perhaps we should call a taxi. You two have a plane waiting."

 

-

 

If Ted had had any hopes for a private charter plane, they were dashed soon enough. They spent the flight crammed into tiny economy class seats under a broken drafty fan that Dougal said made it feel almost like home already. Dougal had read Niamh's pile of horse books for girls while in Dublin and spent the first part of the flight telling Ted the plots – because if there's any reliable rule about Dougal, it was that he could only remember what you'd prefer he didn't – but Ted found it even harder than usual to concentrate on pony club stories since all throughout Dougal was holding his hand under the airline blankets spread over their knees.

 

Ted was only just starting to worry again. He was a worrier, but a) he had Dougal back and b) there was a prospect of more making out in the future, which weighed in favour of this adventure being somewhat less disastrous than, say, the Pennsylvania escapade, for which the only thing to be said was that Ted had learned what to do in an emergency calving. Also the business with the six-armed monkey was making it difficult to concentrate on worrying, which on the other hand was more than reason enough  _to_  worry.

 

Arriving in Dublin on the red-eye, they were collected by a pinched-faced Father Jessop, loaded onto a train and then a ferry. Soon enough the morning mists parted before the stern and ahead of them lay the rocky, soggy, inhospitable expanse of rain and mud that was, well... home.

 

Dougal grinned, found Ted's hand and gave it a squeeze. Ted found himself, to his complete surprise, heaving a sigh of relief.

 


	11. Epilogue

 

 

That was, of course, before the story came out in the Daily Mail.

 

"Look, Ted, they've got a picture of you and me at the dance floor." Dougal held up a blurry colour shot. "And here's one of Niamh outside the police station."

 

"You can't believe anything the Daily Mail says," said Mrs Doyle as she put away the empty teapot. "I've always said, you can't trust the English papers. They know nothing. I reckon the Dublin Times had the right idea."

 

"The Dublin Times didn't print a word about Niamh Connelly's baby," Ted pointed out.

 

"Exactly," said Mrs Doyle triumphantly.

 

"It says here she's getting married to Patsie instead," said Dougal from behind a copy of the Mail.

 

"Does it say who the father of her baby is?"

 

"It still says me, Ted, but there's a security guard who's claiming paternity now. The Mail is calling him a 'male gold-digger'." He turned a page with a rustle. "Oh, here's a quote from Niamh."

 

"What does she say?"

 

Slowly and carefully, Dougal read out. "'Seriously? You're seriously asking me about a male gold-digger? A MALE gold-digger? What the star star star star. I can't even put this star star star star in a song, nobody would star star star star star star star star believe it. I shouldn't have to deal with this. I'm a star star star--'"

 

"I get the picture, Dougal."

 

"– 'star star star STAR.'"

 

"Mrs Doyle, you did disconnect the telephone, didn't you?" said Ted.

 

"As you said, Father. And the door's bolted on the inside and Father Jack's chair has been moved to the hallway to discourage visitors."

 

"Excellent, Mrs Doyle. Dougal?"

 

"Yes, Ted?"

 

"Early to bed?"

 

"But we haven't finished breakfast yet."

 

Ted gulped back his tea and got up. "I just have a feeling it's going to be one of those days."

 

 


End file.
